realSens? Airborne Pipeline Leak Detection Field Operations Results

摘要

Detecting natural gas leaks from the worlds nearly 5 million kilometers of underground pipelines is a difficult and costly problem. Existing technologies are limited to ground deployment and have a number of limitations such as slow response, false leak readings and high costs. Various remote sensing solutions have been proposed in the past and a few are currently being developed. This paper starts by describing the remote sensing concept and then will focus on a new technology called realSens?. This airborne instrument is a passive Gas Filter Correlation Radiometer that is tuned to measure ethane and methane in the 3.3 microns near-infrared band. Theoretical plumes derived from the AFTOX model are compared with actual field measurements taken with the realSens? instrument. The paper concludes with a description of the service which Synodon is offering to the transmission and distribution pipeline operators using the realSens? technology.